Love Remains the Same
by SuprSingr
Summary: Time will go by, people will change, tears will fall, friendships will break, hearts will be broken, regrets will be made, smiles will be fleeting, and the world will keep spinning... but no matter what, love will remain the same.
1. Time Passes

**A/N: **Okay, so this entire thing is based off of the song, "Love Remains the Same." You'll notice that a lot of the characters we loved when we were little have changed quite a bit in this chapter, and I do mean a LOT. That's the whole point of the song. Everything will change, but love will always be there and be the same. I mean, read the freakin' lyrics!

_"Drink, to all that we have lost_

_Mistakes we have made_

_Everything will change_

_But love remains the same"_

How beautiful is that? *Blows nose* My only hope is that one day I'll be able to write lyircs as beautiful and inspirational as that one day. That was the whole reason I got into music. I want to inspire people. But alas, so far I'm at a dead end, and the only people I'm inspiring are four-year-olds to stick their tongues out at authority figures. *Rolls eyes* My brother is still mad about that. I stuck my tongue out at my niece, and now she won't stop sticking HER tongue out. Stupid kids.

Well, without further adieu, here is my crappy repetition of "Love Remains the Same." Please enjoy as best as you can. ;)

**Disclaimer: ***Scratches head dumbly* What is it that I don't own? *Looks off camera, murmurs are heard* Oh, right! Uh... Okay, I don't own Arnold Schwarzenegger. *Frowns* Which really bites. *Someone off screen whispers in my ear* OH! Uh... You didn't hear that. *Points finger at you* I also don't own "_Hey Helga_" *Blinks, someone whispers in my ear again* Well it SHOULD be! *Glares at off-screen person before sighing* Fine, fine. I don't own "_Hey ARNOLD_!" Happy everyone? *Eye twitches*

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**Love Remains the Same**

**Chapter 1**

We all go through those awkward teenage years. You know, that one time in your life when your acne was raging, your waist line was fluctuating, your hormones were racing, and you were as moody as could be? That time when you feel so insecure of yourself and feel your most comfortable when you're all alone; That sad time when everything just confuses you and everyone around you just seems to be trying to make you feel like crap, and maybe at one point in your life, you might have believed that picking on others was really the only way to survive. It's that time in your life when all the wonders of B.O. hit you all at once and hair starts to grow in places it _really_ shouldn't.

And it's not gradual, either. It all just kind of hits you all at once, and you just don't know what to make of anything anymore. It's that time when you feel like if there is a God out there, that he maybe sort of hates you... because let's face it, nobody really seems to like you anymore. And you know that you're moody, and you know that almost everything that comes out of your mouth maybe isn't the 'nicest' of things, and you know that you've got a lot of problems recently that really have to be resolved, and soon too, because otherwise you're almost sure you're going to end up killing yourself and everyone around you.

There's a word for this point in your life, too. It's called puberty, and it treats everyone differently. But no matter who you are, you can know for a fact that it will inevitably get you eventually, and when it does... it's going to suck.

But of course, that awkward, scary point in your life _does eventually _end... and when it does, you might find that things go a lot easier for you now. Your moodiness has calmed, along with everyone else, and your acne has calmed down incredibly, and keeping yourself at that perfect six inch waist might be a _slightly bit_ easier (_Very slightly_)... and you find that your social life has become a lot better (You know this, of course, because you actually _have_a social life now). You feel you've matured, and so has everyone who have ever picked on you, and who you've ever picked on, and your B.O. problems have lessened (You finally found out about the magic of deodorant), thank goodness.

At this point, things have calmed down a lot, and everything has started to make a little more sense. The world that you saw as so dark and cold has opened up and unveiled itself as a place full of possibilities and overall nice people.

All of this, is almost exactly what one Helga G. Pataki had to go through.

After _he_ had left, she'd plunged herself into darkness and despair, as everyone might have expected her to do. It had stayed that way for a long time, Helga just living her life day by day, waiting for that blissful day when the ghost of death would finally come for her, since she was already a hollow shell of herself anyway. She was the walking dead, she might as well become the real thing. Life had not been easy for her.

Later on, puberty had managed to sweep across their humble little seventh grade class. Girls started to get new, awkward looking curves and the boys started to shoot up like weeds.

Puberty had seemed to hit Helga the hardest. She was more developed than some of the other girls, and she seemed to have one of the worst acne cases in the class, along with some of the worst B.O. Fortunately, she was smart enough to figure out how to use deodorant and to wash her face to help prevent acne, unlike a lot of her classmates. She still had huge problems with it, but it did help.

She was made fun of by most of the class, and she had felt that she'd lost some of her intimidation skills. She just didn't tower over the boys like she used to anymore, and most of them finally found their long lost brains and started calling her out on how she'd never actually _hit_anyone before... other than maybe Harold a couple of times, but that was different. Everyone had hit Harold at least one time in their life. He was just so annoying. But some of the boys that sought revenge for all her taunting had started going after her. And no matter how much she didn't want to admit it, she was scared out of her witts.

It was on that day that she'd thrown her first punch, and the day that _Helga the bully _was finally official. She'd knocked at least three teeth out that day, and was _proud_ of it. After that day, though, people had started to really distance themselves from her. They were really afraid of her now, and Helga... _hated it_. Nobody wanted to be her friend anymore. Her only real friend was Phoebe. That had never changed, except the fact that she'd started dating Gerald and Helga hardly ever saw her anymore. Gerald had always been greatly apprehensive about _who_ exactly Helga was, but had always been nice to her for two reasons: 1) Arnold and her had dated for some time, and Arnold had always been ranting about how apparently 'awesome' she was, and 2) she was Phoebe's best friend. But after that one fight, he started distancing himself from her too, and he took Phoebe with him.

After that, Helga was more miserable than ever. Every day after that had gone by like a blur. She'd stopped caring about her appearance, she'd stopped caring about her grades, and she'd just... stopped caring about everything. Life just didn't matter to her anymore.

It wasn't until her father, of all people, finally noticed her strange behavior and confronted her on it did anything change. He'd sat her down at the dining room table and asked her straight up what was wrong. Helga had only stared blankly at him, before telling him that the list was too long for her to recount, and that they'd be there all day. He'd been genuinely concerned at her answer, and told her that they could have all day if she needed.

Helga had spilled her guts out to him, having stopped caring about keeping everything bottled up a long time ago. She was at the point that she would have told her life story to a hobo in the park if he'd so much as asked her how she was. The fact that it was her father hadn't even crossed her mind.

After everything was out on the table, that was when everything in her life had changed. Bob had talked things over with Miriam (When she was sober), who had been even more concerned with everything he was telling her, and she'd declared that some serious changes needed to happen.

Miriam had started going to AA meetings to get over her drinking problem, and had taken up a job at Big Bob's Beepers again, only this time she didn't overwhelm herself and her family with too much work. Bob started going to therapy, and lessened his hours at his business so he could spend more time at home with his family.

Things slowly began to turn around after that. Helga started spending most of her time at home. She may not have had many friends, but she did have family then, and she embraced it as much as possible. Olga moved in a few months later, announcing how she had decided to be an actress. Bob and Miriam had been very disappointed in her, and Bob had even yelled at her over it, saying how she could have been a doctor or a lawyer or gotten some other big job that would have guaranteed success. But Olga had stood by her decision to be an actress, and Helga had encouraged her; Partly because she was delighted with how much Olga had fallen on her parents radars... but also... a small part of her had seen just how happy acting really made Olga, and didn't want her parents to take that away from her. Of course, that was a very, very, VERY small part of her... And it was all _his_ fault that she'd gone soft.

But after that, they had been a happy family for once. Gradually, Bob and Miriam accepted Olga's 'calling', and all the disappointment slowly ebbed, leaving both kids with an equal amount of love for once. So Helga's home life was great, and she was happy, but she was still an awkward teenage girl with no real friends. Going to school was always miserable for poor Helga.

But soon, puberty finally began to even out for everyone. All the awkward young ladies became woman and all the possibly even more awkward guys became men.

Rhonda became a total babe, as predicted, and one of the most popular girls in school, also as predicted. But she wasn't as shallow as she was in her younger years, and had started dating Curly (Or Thad, as they now called him) sometime around the eighth grade, which had seemed to humble her down a lot more too. But no matter how much more decent of a person she'd become, she was still Rhonda Wellington-Lloyd, and she was a force to be reckoned with.

Nadine had become very pretty, too, but had never quite been able to shake that old love for the world of the minuscule. She'd started dating Peapod Kid, or 'Robert', also somewhere around the eighth grade, since Rhonda had nagged her incessantly about not having a boyfriend when she did. She'd finally decided to agree to one of Robert's many offers to go out on a date, and the two had been a pair ever since.

Harold had finally gotten over his fear of 'cooties' somewhere around the sixth grade and started dating Patty, which had received it's fair amount of teasing over. But once puberty had hit Patty and turned her into an actually very nice looking girl, all the teasing had shut up. Harold himself had bulked up from playing football and he'd had Patty tutor him so he could keep his grades up in order to stay on the team. Though he never quite got over his love of eating... pretty much anything that was dead and deep-fried, he had lost a considerable amount of weight so he could maneuver himself better while playing football.

Stinky had stayed one of the tallest boys in class and quite possibly the state, and had dated Lila very briefly during the sixth grade. Unfortunately, things just hadn't worked out between the two of them, and they'd split within the same year. Stinky had been very upset about it, since he'd had such a big crush on her for such a long time, but had slowly started to accept that it just didn't work out and had moved on. He'd decided to focus his energy more on his grades after that and had managed to pull a solid C in almost every class, which had been a huge improvement on his old, usual D's and F's.

Sid had become a sleezy kind of babe magnet around the time puberty ended. He was constantly hitting on girls and pretty much willing to make out with anything that moved. Though he was a gentleman about it. He knew where to draw the line and never tried to make any girls uncomfortable. But despite having surprisingly high self-control and care for the feminine species, he was still a babe magnet, and some girl was almost always attached to his side. He'd grown into his nose and his hair had become more luxurious as time went on, and he'd gained quite a few inches on most of the girls, so he wasn't bad looking at all anymore. So it was understandable why he was so popular with the ladies.

Lila had become one of the most adorable girls in school. She wasn't exactly HOT or DROP DEAD GORGEOUS as most might think, but she was attractive, but more in a kind of puppy dog way. Looking at her would send any boy to their knees at just how adorable and cute she was. She had a small, little waist, she was extremely petite, she wore her hair in a single, long braid, and she had the biggest green eyes you might ever see. Simply put, she was _precious_, and still very physically appealing in her own right. But while her appearance might have changed, she was still the same old Lila everyone knew. She was still a huge goody-two shoes and was one of the most overly pleasant people you'd ever meet. Though sometimes just _how_pleasant may sometimes be a little... overwhelming, she never failed to put a smile on anyone's face.

Sheena managed to become one of the biggest hippie chicks in the whole darned school, and started up her own after school club on flowers. She was still best friends with Eugene, but still hoping to be a little more, though no matter how straight forward she was Eugene just didn't seem to respond to any of it. He'd just smile and walk away. She didn't understand it, but she never gave up. Eugene did inevitably have feelings for her, she knew, because the one time she did try to date someone else (Sid), he'd seemed slightly jealous of it all. Why he was holding back, though, she didn't understand. But other than her nonexistent love life, Sheena had become a bit of a looker herself. Long brown hair, decent curves, and a sweet smile all added up with about a ton of tie-die and you pretty much had Sheena. She was all about peace and was pretty much friends with everybody. Sheena was simply a sweet person.

Eugene... was still a jinx... But he did get smarter about it. He started wearing knee pads under his pants and always kept an ice pack stashed away in his lunch box for the, as he now called it, 'Inevitable Owey'. He pretty much knew all the doctors at the Hospital on a first name basis, and had them on speed dial on his phone, and, happily, since he'd been in so many accidents in the past, he was pretty much numb to the pain now. He could bend his whole thumb backwards and not wince! (A/N: :D) His relationship with Sheena had become a big complicated mess for him, though, and he honestly had no idea of how to go about it. He just wasn't good with girls, and sometimes just how eager she was to jump into his arms freaked him out. Don't get him wrong, Sheena was like his best friend, but _girlfriend_? He just wasn't ready to make the transition. But in the meantime, he was studying to become a _doctor, _if you could believe that... so he could fix himself up quicker whenever he got in an accident, of course. But despite his history in making even toddler toys dangerous, he had never actually harmed anyone other than _himself_. He figured he could get along as a doctor just fine, as long as there were other doctors on stand by who could save his life if he happened to become a little _too familiar _with any of those sharp, metal doctor tools...

Thaddeus "Curly" Gamelthorpe had mellowed out only slightly over the years. He was still a very dramatic guy, and would often spit out bits of gibberish the likes of which you have never heard... or wanted to. He was very into musical theater and was constantly dancing around and testing out his acting skills on poor unsuspecting strangers. But no matter how odd Thaddeus might seem, he was possibly one of the sanest people you'd ever meet. A pretty scary thought would be that everyone else was the insane ones. That was what Thaddeus was constantly saying. His ways may seem odd to the common man, but maybe the common man just didn't have his head screwed on the right way to comprehend it. That's what Thaddeus thought, at least. So when you got right down to it, Thaddeus may seem mad, but there was always a method to his madness, even if it wasn't an obvious one. Over the years, Thaddeus had become quite the looker, indeed. He was possibly one of the best looking dudes in the whole school. His very handsome looks had stepped him up in the popularity department, and Rhonda had told him of how now that he was 'on her level', she could date him without any consequence. He'd been as happy as a clam ever since.

Gerald was still one of the 'cool' kids, and embraced it thoroughly. He was considered a ladies man by many, but he only ever had his eyes on one girl in particular and had never had any interest in anyone else. He played many different sports, particularly basketball, and he was a very charming guy at heart. His looks hadn't changed much since he was younger, except how he'd pretty much shot up almost as tall as Stinky himself. And due to his added height, he decided that a trim was in order. So he went to the barber and told him just to take off an inch or two. Unfortunately, he got a new guy and he had his tall stack of hair pretty much cut _in half_. He'd, at first, been devastated, but after a little while's worth of people praising his new hair-do, he decided he really like his new look and decided to keep it.

Phoebe, Gerald's long time girlfriend, also hadn't changed very much over the years. She'd started wearing very preppy clothes, often including things like plaid skirts and white collar shirts, but despite her overly prep school style, she kept her old yellow scrunchy that she used to wear in her hair. She often wore her hair down nowadays, but she still wore the familiar scrunchy around her wrist. She called it her 'lucky scrunchy' and always had to have it whenever a test was going on. Though she often said she didn't believe in luck, she simply refused to leave home without her scrunchy. And that was simply that.

But over all of the people in their old class, Helga was probably the one to change the most. Within the years of Helga's family becoming more of a family, Helga had softened up more and more and didn't even know it. Things seemed to become a lot easier for Helga, and her grades shot back up in record time. She smiled a lot more and she finally stopped waving her fists around. Her acne subsided along with all the moodiness and stress, and her old awkward curves finally blossomed completely. Her hair grew longer and she grew much taller. By the end of puberty, she'd become one of the most attractive girls in the school. She had curves in all the right places, and her hair fell to about her waist line, long and luxurious, free of any old bow. She finally managed to move on from the pain of having _him_ move away, and her bow was instead worn as either a ponytail holder, a choker, or a bracelet. With age came maturity and she stopped pretending to be the bully. She walked taller at school and she managed to make back all her friends, even some new ones. Phoebe was quickly by her side again, along with Gerald, Lila, Rhonda, Sheena, Patty, and definitely all of the boys. She laughed a lot more often and her dull blue eyes became bright again. The world that had once been nothing but grayness had finally managed to blossom again and she was able to truly enjoy all the color it held again.

She started wearing slightly more flowy clothes because of this, but was overall just casual jeans and shirts and the occasional dress. She didn't care much for clothes and only really wore what she felt was comfortable, though she did try to be at least a little trendy just so Rhonda would get off her back. But other than that, her clothes were very comfortable. And yes, she still favored pink. It had become a habit to buy pretty much anything pink, so the color was almost always dominant in her outfits.

She was a lot kinder to everyone and had even managed to date a few guys after a while, though none of them seemed to work out, sadly.

You could probably say that Helga had gotten her act together. And though puberty may have gone on for a little longer than we all would have liked, we all have to go through it at one point in our lives. Helga is no exception. But she made it through it all and managed to come out of it all smelling like a daisy and feeling more confident in herself than she ever had before. And in the end, that was all that really mattered.

Everything seemed to be going right in Helga's life after that one rough patch, and she had never been happier.

That is until...

She shut her locker and turned around, only to come face to face with the one person she never thought she'd see again...

Arnold smiled. "Hey Helga."

And that was when it all came crumbling down...

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**A/N: **Part two should be up soon! But in the meantime, anyone who is kind enough...

_**REVIEW!**_


	2. Love Remains

**A/N: **'Ello all. Tea and crumpets and all that. XD

Ignoring my sudden descent to England - Here's part two! :D

**Disclaimer: **Do we really need to go through this again? *Rolls eyes* Okay, fine. _Supr-Singr no own show_... There we go. On with the show!

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**Love Remains the Same**

**Chapter 2**

Helga's expression had remained neutral for some time now, and Arnold was starting to become a bit self-conscious. But nonetheless, he maintained his smile, though actually seeing her in person after all this time was still seeming to mess with his mind a little.

Over the years of Arnold's move, he'd never had time to really _do_ anything. He was rushed all over the world by his parents, surroundings always changing and always meeting new people, only to leave them a few months later and never see them again.

Though without Arnold's presence, _Helga's_ world had slowly stopped revolving around him, without the presence of anyone but his parents for so many years, Arnold's world had very quickly started centering on Helga. Though everything in his life came and went with time, he'd quickly figured that Helga was always a constant, even if she wasn't actually there with him. It seemed that no matter how much time passed or how many new people he met or new places he'd go, his old love for Helga never seemed to diminish in even the slightest. In fact, all it really did was grow.

Since Arnold had no one to really rely on anymore in his and his parent's travels, he'd started leaning on the old, familiar love he held for his ex-girlfriend, and did so religiously. He'd always talk about her, and his thoughts were very often focused on her, and not a day went by that he didn't dream about her and wonder what she was up to...

Puberty came and went for Arnold without much fuss, and in the night Arnold became a young man. He had had a very significant growth spurt around his fourteenth birthday that brought him up to a good five feet. Since that one growth spurt, Arnold's growth patterns had fluctuated up and down to the point that he reached nearly six feet.

He'd had a very brief case of the acne bug for about a year, but luckily his family had never had too many big, dramatic changes in their history when it came to puberty, other than height and smell. He was a true Shortman in the fact that puberty hadn't presented him with all that many changes that weren't overall pleasant in the end.

But despite him becoming a handsome young man, Arnold had still been quite dense when it came to the advances of any of the girls he had managed to meet on his travels. Not really interested in bothering with relationships when he still held a torch for his old girlfriend, Arnold hadn't paid any mind to any of the few girls that had shown interest in him, often not even by intention, though if he had known he would have turned them down gently anyway.

His tufts of cornflower hair still stuck up oddly, and his body grew more into his football head (Or was it his football head grew into his body?). His wardrobe varied from plaid shirts to pale green t-shirts and modestly ripped jeans, and he very rarely ever wore his old little blue hat from his youth, though he did still cling to it a bit obsessively out of habit. His chest became broader, and his legs longer and leaner, and his light green eyes stayed kind and true, though they did hold a new craving for the city and all the wonders that it held since he'd been away from his home for so long. Absence truly did make the heart grow fonder, and in more ways than one, too.

After a long time of watching their son scribble away at letters to his ex-girlfriend that would inevitably never be responded to, Miles and Stella had agreed that a serious change needed to occur. His homesickness had become increasingly more apparent, along with how Arnold was almost always staring into the face of a picture he'd taken of his ex-girlfriend right before they'd broken up. The locket had been a parting gift from Helga herself when they'd left, and Arnold had clung to that thing as if it were the safety bar of a roller coaster ever since. He was never seen without it, in fact. The golden locket was placed in his pocket at all times, and he patted his pockets nearly every five minutes to make sure it was still there, safe and sound. Miles and Stella had noticed all this more than anyone and had truly felt guilty for breaking him up from his girlfriend at the peak of their relationship. Arnold's sanity had been paying for it ever since it seemed.

So the decision to go home had been made, and within a few months the small family had packed up their things and headed back home.

Which was what brought Arnold to where he was now, staring into the face that had haunted him ever since he'd left. Though the face that he'd remembered had certainly changed... Her straight, shiny, blonde hair was hanging down over her shoulders, her messy bangs brushed to the side. Her old pink bow was currently being worn as a bracelet, which only seemed to increase his smile even more. The bow meant that she hadn't given up on him, which was definitely a relief to his currently throbbing heart. Her body was long and curvaceous, which his hormones of course picked up on right away, and her long, pale neck was screaming for him to come give attention to. Although, so were her full lips and cute nose and... pretty much every part of her body, actually. But especially her lips. He was amazed at how well he'd been able to hold himself back from doing something completely crazy, considering how much his emotions were overflowing at the moment. It had been years since he'd seen that face, only lightly dusted with make up and her sparkling blue eyes as wide as he'd ever seen them.

Though he felt that he could just stand there and admire every possible aspect of her beauty for years to come, her continued silence really was starting to unnerve him. His heart was beating harder than it had in a long time and his hands were starting to seriously sweat. He wasn't sure how much more waiting he could take. She was just standing there in all her loveliness, not saying a word after years of him obsessing over her and every memory they'd ever made together. He felt like he'd just pretty much laid his heart on the line with that simple "Hey Helga" and just standing in front of her like a doofus, and there she was, completely silent! How long had it been now anyway? How long had he been standing there in front of her? For the love of all humanity, if she didn't say SOMETHING in the next few seconds Arnold could almost swear he was going to just end up melting into a big, goopy pile of nerves and heart ache!

"Wow." Was the word to finally slip from Helga's sweet, pink lips.

Wow? Was that all she had to say?

"It's been a while, hasn't it, Football Head?" She continued with a pleasant, friendly lilt, a fond smile finally blossoming across her lips as she readjusted the books she was currently holding against her chest so she could go forward and give him a one-armed hug.

Mayday! Mayday! He hadn't planned for actual physical contact THIS soon and-Oh geez, she still smelled exactly the same. Pure vanilla with a hint of strawberries. He'd made a bet with himself that she probably smelled the same, or at least he'd hoped she did. And oh, she did. He held in his contented sigh and instead opted to simply hugging her back.

The embrace ended all too soon when Helga pulled back and looked at him with that continued companionable smile, and readjusted her books back across her chest with both arms to reassure that they wouldn't fall. "So," She began pleasantly, leaning back against the lockers behind her and crossing one ankle over the other, "what brings you all the way back to our lovely little corner of crap central?"

Arnold blinked at her, taken aback by just how friendly she was actually being to him. He knew that his leaving had been extremely hard on her, based off of some of the letters he'd received from some of his other classmates that had bothered to keep up with his constantly changing address. But the young lady in front of him now looked very put together and assured of herself; Her smile was pleasant, her eyes still holding some of that old sarcastic glow to them, the paper that was poking out of her text books had a clearly marked **_A+_** on it, and her posture was lazy but comfortable, all the same. She looked like she was just talking to an old friend, as opposed to the guy that broke her heart back in grade six... along with his own.

Bringing his thoughts away from the past, Arnold smiled back with his own friendly, casual (Or hopefully casual) smile while bringing his hands behind his back as he informed her, "Well, my mom and dad just decided it was time to come back home, and so we did. Simple as that. So how've _you_ been, Helga? I haven't _heard_ from you in a while." He raised an accusing but overall playful eyebrow at her, leaning into her personal space slightly.

A lovely rosey hue came to her cheeks, and Helga smiled in a guilty manner at him. "_Yeah_, I'm sorry about that. I guess it was just..." Her words stopped there, and she looked down as a slightly regretful look flashed across her face for a moment.

"...too much for you at the time?" Arnold offered in an understanding way, smiling kindly. Though he would never actually admit to her that her lack of response to his letters had hurt him, he'd forgiven her a long time ago, and was especially not planning on holding any sort of grudge against her now that he had her back. Life was simply too short for those kinds of things.

Helga's heart skipped a beat at how understanding he was being with her, but she ignored the feeling and smiled at him more sincerely, though still in a slightly ashamed manner. "Exactly. You can read me like a book even now, Paste for Brains." She playfully hit him in the arm, trying to move on from the awkward subject of her not writing back, and laughing at the old nine-year-old name she used to call him on a regular basis.

Arnold laughed along with her, a hand instinctively going to the spot on his arm that she'd hit, even if it didn't actually hurt him like it did back when they were younger. It felt so much like old times, back when they could just joke around with each other when they were still together. He still remembered what all of their joking around and tom-foolery inevitably resulted in at the end - A kiss.

This thought brought Arnold's chuckles to a stop, and he looked at Helga seriously. The look he was giving her was so serious that it even made Helga stop laughing. Arnold was slightly regretful of this for only a moment, before his thoughts looped back around to what he had been thinking of before. Arnold looked around a moment, realizing that everyone had already gone to class. They were going to be late, but Arnold really didn't care at the moment. What he had on his mind was well worth the detention slip he was almost completely sure he was going to get for himself and Helga.

He looked back at her then and took a deep, quiet breath before taking a small step towards her and asking, "Helga, what happened to us?"

Helga blinked, almost dropping her books she was so caught off guard by the question. After a few moments, though, Helga responded with a small hint of bitterness that she was trying desperately to conceal, "You had a choice between me or your parents, and you chose your parents. That's what happened, Football Head."

Arnold shook his head, pursing his lips together slightly as he looked at her, "No, Helga. It was more than that, and you know it."

Helga kept her eyes trained on the books in her arms, though she wasn't really looking at them, as she said quietly, "It may not have been the only problem, but it was the one that started it all."

Arnold looked down at that too, and a silence fell over the two. Arnold would open his mouth now and then, as if he were about to say something, but he'd close it quick before whatever it was that he was about to say could escape his lips.

Suddenly, Helga's voice rang out, "Do you regret it?"

Arnold's eyes lifted up to see Helga's wide blue ones much closer than he'd remembered they were. The sight nearly made him lose his breath, but he managed to catch it before it left him completely, and he asked with a swallow, "Our break up, you mean?"

Helga nodded without any words, the tops of her teeth clinging to the flesh of the back of her bottom lip as she stared at him.

"Um..." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, almost regretting bringing any of this up. Maybe he just wasn't ready to open up this can of worms just yet... But no, he pressed on and told her, "Well, I don't know. The reason we broke up was because my family was moving, and when I told you that we were you... flipped out and we got into that big fight about how you didn't want me to go... and then we broke up in a huff, and then I moved... and..." It was almost too painful for Arnold to continue, the memories of just how venomous and deeply hurt Helga looked when he told her he was moving away with his mom and dad washing over him and almost making him want to cry just as hard as he had that night. They'd both screamed that they were 'over and through' at each other, and some stuff that they both hadn't really meant had come out in that one big fight. Helga had avoided him since, and right before he stepped onto that old RV to drive away, Helga had showed up in tears just to throw one last item at him before running away. It had been the locket that she'd gotten him, the one that was currently burning a hole in his pocket at that very second. He hadn't seen or heard from her since then, and ever since that point had their entire relationship been dead. The entire event had been ugly, and though Arnold had coped with it all by clinging to the love he still held for her to this day, Helga had apparently tried to forget anything between them had ever happened. And from the looks of things, it would seem that her strategy worked out just dandy, which only managed to wedge another small dagger through his heart.

The memories and sorrows finally finishing going through his mind after all these years, Arnold finally said, "If you're asking me if I regret the entire fight and our messy break up..." He paused. "...then absolutely yes. But no matter how badly it ruined things between us, I just can't regret my decision to go with my parents. I regret what it did to us, but I don't think I ever would have made a different decision anyway, Helga, even after all this time."

Helga looked at him with a tight expression, her features rigid and her posture unmoving. Finally, she let out a breath and told him, "I-I understand why you did it, Arnold. It just hurt at the time, is all." She looked away, once again readjusting the books in her arms since they kept trying to slide down and out of her arms, and her expression blank.

"Do you still have feelings for me, Helga?" Arnold asked, fearful of the answer.

"I thought I'd never see you again." Helga said flatly, still looking away at the same spot with the same expression.

"But do you still love me, Helga?" Arnold asked again, hating how she seemed to be avoiding the question like she was.

Helga looked him straight in the eye then, and told him in possibly the most serious voice she'd ever used in her life, "I'll never need you again like I used to, I'll never worship you like I did before, I'll never sleep walk to your house in the night, I'll never cry your name when I go to sleep, I'll never stalk you when your back is turned, and I'll never live for you and you only ever again..."

With every word that came out of her mouth an aching pain shot through Arnold's heart, to the point that he was near just collapsing on the floor. He didn't even bother with trying to hide his utterly crushed and heartbroken expression. "O-Oh..." His voice broke, much like his soul.

Seeing just how broken he suddenly seemed proved to Helga right away that he still loved her, and so she let out a loud breath and finished her thought, dropping her books to the ground without a second thought or care in the world, "But criminy if I'll ever stop loving you, Football Head!" And with that, she strode forward and wrapped her arms around his neck in a flash, pressing her whole self into him from head to toe and kissing him with even more intensity and passion than she had on the FTi building so many years ago.

Arnold felt like he'd had the wind knocked out of him, and his heart beat went from zero to sixty in less than a second. He stumbled backward a few steps even, the intensity of her kiss caught him so off guard. His body seemed to catch up faster than his brain, though, and his arms grabbed her to him and he started kissing her back with an intensity that rivaled even her own. The sudden heat and intensity of Arnold's kiss even managed to have Helga's eyes shoot open in surprise for a moment, and to stare widely into Arnold's own. Seeing her surprised blue gaze only managed to shock Arnold's stupefied mind into a haze, and he finally managed to close his eyes and lean her back slightly in his arms as they kissed. Helga blinked a moment in her surprise at this new development, before a grin quickly made itself known on her lips as they kissed, and she closed her eyes again and squealed in delight at having him here with her like this again after all this time. She'd forgotten how good it felt to kiss him like this. Heck, they'd never kissed like this before. Part of Arnold always seemed to be elsewhere when they kissed, like he was holding something back. But not in this kiss... this was _ALL_ Arnold, and Helga was going to abuse it thoroughly.

After a few more minutes of kissing, their lungs finally got the better of them and they both parted lips so they could both inhale a large and much needed gulp of air. After several seconds of panting, Helga said breathlessly, still in his arms, "'Kay... maybe I do _need_ you a little bit..." Unwilling to wait any longer, she pressed her lips to his again eagerly and managed to unwound her arms around his neck enough that she could grab him by his collar and force his lips into even more contact with her own, all the while bustling her way to the direction of the closet she remembered seeing not too far away, and dragging Arnold and his wonderful lips with her. Arnold followed her without protest, completely at her will.

Needless to say, they missed first period, along with a good portion of second.

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, so I've always believed that before Arnold and Helga could REALLY be together, Helga would have to do a lot of growing up. Yes, she is much more mature than most kids her age, but she's still only a kid, and a kid with a lot of problems too. And I've always thought that Helga really needed to start to realize that there really ARE other fish in the sea, and she's not going to die if Arnold ever decides it's time to move on. I mean, really, throughout the show, Arnold was like her crutch. She clung to him like glue to paper. That's not good. So here, Helga's little speech was basically her saying that she'll never be the obsessive, stalking, shrine-building, Arnold-worshipping girl she was before ever again. She's really grown up and matured fully and has figured out that there's more to life than just kissing the ground Arnold walks on. It seemed like loving Arnold was all Helga really KNEW about herself, it was all she had to live for and was the only way she knew how to live. So it stands to reason that Helga would need to find herself, and finding herself would require some time apart from Arnold, which is what took place here.

But on Arnold's side, I've always believed that he'd need to figure some things out about what he really wants before he and Helga could really be together. If anyone's curious, that's what Helga could always feel Arnold holding back when they kissed - Doubt. I mean, really, the transition between Arnold falling for soft, feminine, giggly, seemingly perfect, motherly-type girls to hard, tough, independent, devilishly-sarcastic, kiss-my-butt Helga is HUGE. I mean, come _on_. So I've always thought that Arnold might need some time to really realize exactly what it is that he NEEDS in a woman, as opposed to what he WANTS. So in his time away from Helga, Arnold's mind finally clicked with the fact that Helga is what he wants and needs completely and he started obsessing over this fact and seriously aching over it. You never know what ya got until ya lose it. ;)

So bottom line, I had Helga grow up and stop _obsessing_ over Arnold, and I had Arnold grow up and fully and completely commit himself to Helga. Kiss, kiss - happily ever after - case closed.

Also, before any of your perverted little minds have their way with this, all they did was make out. XD

Hope you enjoyed my rendition of "Love Remains the Same!" 'Cause no matter how much time goes by or what ever happens, Arnold and Helga's love will remain the same. ^_^

And so, if you liked it, please let me know in your...

**_REVIEW!_**

And thank you to anyone who reviewed the last chapter! I really do appreciate it! I love you guys! :D


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